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penitent, you will pray to God for forgiveness, and most sincerely resolve never willingly to be guilty of the same sin again. But you must also remember that, by the law of God, sin can never pass unpunished. God has said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." And when you do any thing that is wrong, and afterwards repent of it, God forgives you, because the Savior has borne the punishment which you deserve. This is what is meant by that passage of Scripture, "he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." Our Father in heaven loved us so much that he gave his own Son to die in our stead. And now he says that he is ready to forgive, if we will repent, and believe in his Son who has suffered and died to save us. And ought we not to love so kind a Savior? You cannot expect at present precisely and fully to understand every thing connected with the sufferings and death of Christ, and the moral effect they produce. In fact, it is intimated in the Bible, that even the angels in heaven find this subject one capable of tasking all their powers. You can understand, however, that he suffered and died, that you might be forgiven. It would not be safe in any government to forgive sin merely on the penitence of the sinner. Civil government cannot do this safely; a family government cannot do it safely. It is often the case, when a man is condemned to death for a crime he has committed, that his dearest friends, sometimes his wife and children, make the most affecting appeals to the chief magistrate of the state, to grant him pardon. But it will not do. The governor, if he knows his duty, will be firm, however painful it may be, in allowing the law to take its course; for he has to consider not merely the wishes of the unhappy criminal and his friends, but the safety and happiness of the whole community. And so the governor of the universe must consider, not merely his own benevolent feelings towards the sinner, but the safety and the holiness of all his creatures; and he could not have forgiven our sins, unless he had planned a way by which we might safely be forgiven. This way he did devise, to sustain law and protect holiness, and yet to let us go free from the punishment due to our sins. Jesus died for us. He bore our sins. By his stripes we are healed. And shall we not be grateful? It is thus that God has provided a way for our escape from the penalty of his law. You have read, "God so loved t
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